I came upon “greige” in a lame article about the iPhone. Though the piece sucked, I thought the word was cool. Greige. Had to mean a boring, unpleasant color, like a gray or a beige, right? As opposed to the beauty that is anything Apple, according to some?

I was so intrigued I looked it up and it means something totally different. It’s from the textile industry and means “unfinished”. Like, undyed.

I propose a second meaning, that of a boring color or function. “My old Cingular Sony Ericsson phone is so fucking greige. I can’t wait to chunk it for an iPhone 2.0.”

I thought I was in a special test market and was really in on some groundbreaking snack experimentation. You could have a flashy display with Vegas showgirls and explosives and I’d pass it by, but if I see a little black bag of something that looks kind of like it may be a little dangerous to your health, I’m going to go check it out, man.

Yeah, Doritos, you got my $2.59. But you didn’t understand how powerful is the power of bloggism and now no one in the land will try your confounded demon snacks spawned from an unholy coupling of Ronald McDonald and Dora Dorito. Who doesn’t exist, but she should. So she could kick the evil scientist out of the Doritos kitchen and bring back Cool Ranch-style goodness.

Or, unless you’re like me, after reading this, you’ll go buy a bag just to see how yucky a chip can be.

I found a person who has never watched a Sopranos episode all the way through, but knew a bit about the hubbub from simply living in America. This is not someone’s granny, however.

Subject: Hot 36 year old babe, smart (salutatorian of her class). Journey fan.

I gave her a bit of background. Not much. I told her it was the last episode, and the people involved in the scene were all a family. I told her that Tony was a mobster.

That’s right…I only showed her the last scene. I let it roll and shut up.

Results:

After the black screen (at which time she looked up at me and asked ‘is that all?’, which I met with silence and pointed back at the screen until the credits came up), I asked Subject what she thought happened.

She thought the ending meant they continued their lives as normal. I think this was really typical of the majority of viewers–until they thought about it more.

I asked Subject what was the very last shot she remembered seeing.

She said the last shot wasMEADOW ENTERING THE DINER.

Researcher was very pleased at the results. In fact, researcher lost his professional detachment and started laughing with delight. This was the first time I’d heard that this strange effect could be reproduced in fairly controlled conditions.

She had not read my analysis and didn’t know about the details of the controversy. She definitely didn’t know the issue that some of us have picked up on (but, still, not major media) about how funky it is that we remember different endings.

I replayed the same end again at her request, then asked her about the last shot, which she remembered correctly the second time. She said that what got her was the danger “the daughter” was in out there on the road, and how the SUV seemed like it was going to nail her.

Subject, who has a degree in psychology, mentioned how trauma victims sometimes have similar gaps in their memory following a stressful event.

The lesson of the day is The Misplaced Meadow effect is demonstrable. Or, more generally, even a television show can cause viewers to exhibit trauma victim symptoms. Or, more directly, David Chase is a big ol’ traumatizer. :)